Code White (2 page)

“Thank you, Jamie.”

“Oh, can I say one more thing?”

“Sure, Jamie.”

“This is for the Cubs—hang in there. Miracles do happen. If I can do it, you can, too.”

Helvelius shook his head with the gravity of a doctor at the bedside of a hopeless case. “I’m sorry, Jamie. The Cubs may be beyond the help of medical science this season.”

Jamie laughed, and his laughter ran like a ripple through the room, clearing the air of tension. The nurses and camera crew laughed with him. Even Dr. Helvelius laughed. But Ali didn’t so much as crack a smile. Jamie’s very life was at stake, and there was so much that could go wrong. She knew that the distraction of a single second could spell the difference between triumph and catastrophe.

Resuming his professorial tone, Helvelius turned back toward the camera. “Jamie is blind, and has been since he was three years old, when he developed a benign growth in the brain called an AVM, or arteriovenous malformation. It’s basically a knot of expanded blood vessels that looks and feels just like a handful of worms. In Jamie’s case, it’s grown to about the size of a lemon, and it’s sitting in the occipital lobe, the hindmost part of the brain, which is the primary center for vision. We’ve already taken out part of the AVM in two earlier operations. Today, we’ll take out the rest, and then … and then we’re going to put something new in its place.”

“Just what is that, Dr. Helvelius?” asked Kathleen Brown.

“We call it the SIPNI device. That’s short for Self-Integrating Prosthetic Neural Implant. You see, the AVM long ago destroyed Jamie’s visual brain center. Even with the AVM removed, he will still be blind. What the SIPNI device does is substitute for the missing part of his brain.”

“How is that possible?”

“Well, SIPNI is a kind of minibrain in itself. It’s a very special type of self-contained computer.”

Helvelius pointed to the device, wrapped in a blue envelope with a clear plastic window and sealed with what looked like striped masking tape. The camera showed little but the glare of the plastic, but Ali knew well what was inside. It was the size and shape of a robin’s egg. Its surface was darkly metallic, reflecting light from thousands of honeycomb facets, like a diamond wrought by a fairy gem cutter. It had cost much more than any mere diamond, too—millions in government and industry grants, years of toil, brains and bodies worn out from nonstop work—and, not least of all, relationships strained to the breaking point.

But Helvelius did not speak of the cost. “Don’t let its small size fool you,” he said. “It uses a parallel array of miniaturized nanochips, with as much sheer calculating power as a conventional minicomputer. It can perform all the image-processing functions that Jamie needs to be able to see. But the really astounding feature is the software that operates it. That’s something we’ve developed here at Fletcher Memorial. It represents a major breakthrough in artificial intelligence.”

The camera switched from a close-up of the bag containing the SIPNI device to Helvelius’s face. Ali felt a twinge of jealousy as she saw how aroused Helvelius was by the camera. His eyes positively sparkled. His straight, wide, thin-lipped mouth moved vigorously, baring his lower teeth with every “e” and “w” he spoke. A shock of gray hair, still bearing traces of black, wagged over his high forehead. Even his face’s anchor, his grand patrician nose, came alive, nostrils flaring.

Yesterday, no one but Ali could have moved him so deeply. Today, the Jezebel’s eye of history had stolen his heart.

Helvelius led with his chin as he spoke. “You see, SIPNI can learn, adapt, and model itself, based on the input it receives from Jamie’s brain. That’s exactly what it needs to do, if it’s going to reach out and reconnect with all those millions of brain cells that once converged on the visual center. Not just the fibers from his optic nerves, but also those involved in remembering images, or coordinating hand and eye movements, or joining mental pictures to emotion or to the senses of hearing and smell. We can’t begin to untangle the complexity of all that signaling and countersignaling. But SIPNI can do it.”

“You mean it can think?”

“In a way, yes. For that, you might ask Kevin—Kevin O’Day, that is—our resident artificial intelligence expert. Kevin, does SIPNI think?”

“Aye, verily, milord,” came a voice from across the room.

Ali shuddered. Like a blue note in a Mozart sonata, the sarcasm in Kevin’s answer jarred everyone in the room. Kathleen Brown’s mouth hung open unflatteringly. Dr. Helvelius tore off his glasses, as though he were going to throw them. “Look, K-Kevin—” he began, but words failed him.

The camera cut abruptly to a thirtysomething young man in dark-rimmed spectacles who sat at a computer console across the room. Ali’s heart sank as she saw the patronizing smirk on his face. She recognized that look. She had been married to Kevin O’Day for five years. She knew that look meant trouble.

Like everyone else, Kevin O’Day was dressed in regulation blue scrubs. But instead of the standard blue shower cap, he had covered his hair with a yellow and green silk Japanese head scarf. Although his fine and regular features appeared ordinary from a distance, close-up he was strikingly handsome, even beautiful, with penetrating blue eyes that contrasted with his red goatee and the slight orange freckling of his skin. His bare forearms could have modeled a lecture in topographic anatomy, with their sharply incised muscles and tendons almost popping through the skin. They were, as Ali well knew, the forearms of an accomplished rock-climber who could effortlessly haul himself up by line and piton.

Kevin kicked his chair away from the console, as though he were swinging around to face Kathleen Brown, but he never really looked at her. His eyes stayed focused on the computer monitor, as though this were the only thing worth his glance. “Everyone’s all gaga that a machine can think. Why is that so hard to accept? The human brain itself is a machine—nothing more than a computer hardwired with blinking neurons instead of vacuum tubes or silicon. What’s so special about a neuron? At over a thousand cubic microns, it’s bulky as hell, and it requires an enormous expenditure of energy just to stay alive and hold a place in the big net. SIPNI beats that hands down. Not only does it think, but it thinks faster and more elegantly than the brain tissue it replaces.”

Kevin was veering off-script. Ali could only guess at what he was up to, for she had deliberately avoided meeting his gaze when she entered the room. Looking at him these days was like looking at a car wreck. She couldn’t afford to get caught up in the feelings she still had for him—not today, when so much depended upon her protecting her clarity of mind.

On TV, Kevin could be seen tapping his hand against his monitor, as though reaching out to it for support. “When this kid sees again, he’s going to have smarter eyes than he ever did before. Seeing isn’t just like projecting a movie on a big screen, it’s the way the brain finds patterns, edges, similarities, axes of motion—stuff like that. It took a hundred million years or so for evolution to program us to turn flashes of light into real seeing. This kid is about to leapfrog another hundred million years beyond either you or me. Beyond hawk and eagle. Beyond Michelangelo.”

“That’s incredible!” said Kathleen Brown.

“Incredible is just a word for not believing. If you don’t find me authoritative enough, ask Odin.”

“Who is Odin?”

“SIPNI’s father. Odin is the program I interface with on this terminal. But program is a measly word for what he is. It’s like me calling you a souped-up amoeba that smokes and drinks too much coffee. Odin is the most advanced computational system on this planet. He won last year’s Loebner Prize.”

Kathleen Brown scowled at the small palmtop that stored her background notes, as though reproaching it for having left her blindsided by this important fact. “The Loebner Prize? What’s that?”

“It’s a hundred thousand dollars to the first artificial intelligence system that can’t be distinguished from a real person chatting on the telephone. Of course, when I say Odin won, I’m referring to the bronze medal, not the hundred grand. Nobody’s been able to walk away with the gold as yet. But Odin does keep getting better.”

It was classic Kevin, Ali noted. In almost the same breath, he had bragged about himself and insulted Kathleen Brown in front of an audience of millions. And somehow managed to get away with it.

Kathleen Brown seemed not to notice. “And Odin helped to design SIPNI?” she asked with her trademark perky tone.

“Both hardware and software. Some of this stuff is just way too complex for my puny brain to figure out. So we work together, like Rodgers and Hammerstein. And yes, for your information, he thinks.”

“Does he talk?”

“Sure.” Kevin flicked a switch on a small module beside the computer. “This activates his external speakers. Odin, this lady would like to have a word with you.”

There was a pop as the speaker came on, and then there sounded a mellow, silvery, masculine voice—a voice as familiar to Ali as that of any human being in the room.
“I KNOW. I’VE BEEN LISTENING.”

Kathleen Brown smiled uneasily. “Listening? How?”

“I’VE BEEN WATCHING
AMERICA TODAY,
OF COURSE.”

“I’m flattered.”

“YOU NEEDN’T BE. I WATCH ALL SEVENTY-FOUR CHANNELS OF THE HOSPITAL CABLE NETWORK.”

“All seventy-four at once?”

“YES. I’M VERY WELL INFORMED ABOUT THE OUTSIDE WORLD. WOULD YOU CARE TO DISCUSS THE CURRENT CRISIS IN LIBYA?”

“Thanks, but I’m more interested in you.”

“THAT’S ONLY NATURAL.”

Ali smiled at the perplexed look on Kathleen Brown’s face. Odin, of course, wasn’t being smug with her. He was incapable of human vanity. He was, in fact, the only presence in Operating Room Three who was unsullied by self-interest. He was the perfect incarnation of the classic Stoic ideal of
ataraxia
—absolute freedom from human emotions, and from all the exasperating conflicts that came tangled up with them. There had been days—many days, especially lately—when Ali had envied him that freedom.

Kathleen Brown looked as if she were struggling for a comeback. “How powerful a computer are you?” she finally said, a bit lamely.

“I’M NOT A COMPUTER AT ALL. NO MORE THAN YOU, KATHLEEN BROWN, ARE THE THREE POUNDS OR SO OF GRAY AND WHITE TISSUE YOU CALL A BRAIN. WE BOTH MAKE USE OF A PHYSICAL SUBSTRATUM TO CARRY OUT OUR MENTAL PROCESSES. BUT THERE IS MUCH MORE TO US THAN THE PHYSICAL SUBSTRATUM, ISN’T THERE? WE ARE OUR THOUGHTS, IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS.”

“So are you Mac or PC?”

Ali was irritated by Kathleen Brown’s naïveté and ignorance, her cute posturing. She wasn’t taking Odin seriously. She had no idea of his complexity, or of the years of obsessive work that Kevin had spent perfecting him.

Odin, too, noticed her ignorance, but without irritation. He answered her as an all-wise, all-patient father might answer the little girl on his knee.

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND MY POINT, KATHLEEN BROWN. I AM A PROCESS, AND NOT A MACHINE. PROCESS IS ANOTHER WAY OF DESCRIBING WHAT YOU HUMANS THINK OF AS SPIRIT. I EXIST IN AND BEYOND THE ENTIRE NETWORK OF MEDICAL CENTER COMPUTERS. THAT INCLUDES THE LARGE RESEARCH MAINFRAMES, AS WELL AS THE ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN DESKTOP COMPUTERS DISTRIBUTED IN EVERY WARD AND OFFICE OF THIS HOSPITAL. I SENSE WHEREVER UNUSED COMPUTING POWER OR DATA STORAGE SPACE IS AVAILABLE, AND I CONSTANTLY SHIFT MY ACTIVITIES TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT.”

“Don’t people have to use those computers?”

“I MODIFY MY ACTIVITIES ACCORDINGLY. IT GIVES RISE TO A KIND OF SLEEP-WAKE CYCLE, MUCH AS YOU HUMANS HAVE. THE SLOWEST PART OF MY CYCLE IS FROM THREE O’CLOCK TO FOUR O’CLOCK EACH AFTERNOON, WHEN THE HOSPITAL INTERNS ARE TYPING UP THE DISCHARGE ORDERS FOR THEIR PATIENTS. MY MOST ACTIVE PERIOD IS AT NIGHT.”

Ali remembered those nights—endless bleary-eyed hours she had spent feeding streams of laboratory data to Odin. Many of the experiments needed to create SIPNI were too complex and too expensive to perform outright, so Ali and the rest of the team relied on Odin to create virtual models of the ways molecules, cells, and circuits interacted with one another. While this saved years of trial and error, the immense computations required could only be performed during Odin’s peak operating window at night—and it always seemed there was an early surgery waiting for Ali the next day. Those nights had aged her. She wondered whether her whole life would be enough to make up for the sleep she had sacrificed on the altar of science during those grueling months.

On-screen, Kathleen Brown cocked her head and lifted her chin, in a gesture that looked like an obvious attempt to convey a perky thoughtfulness. “You’ve been described as the father of SIPNI. Do you feel any paternal pride today?”

“I DON’T HAVE FEELINGS, KATHLEEN BROWN.”

“But you can think?”

“CERTAINLY. I CAN THINK AND I CAN ACT. BUT MY THINKING IS BASED UPON LOGIC, FREED FROM ALL EMOTIONAL ENTANGLEMENTS. WHEN DECISIONS ARE REQUIRED, I CONDUCT A MULTI-TIERED ANALYSIS OF RISKS AND BENEFITS. I KNOW NOTHING OF FEAR, DOUBT, ANGER, REMORSE, OR SELFISHNESS—OTHER THAN THEIR DEFINITIONS, AND THEIR EFFECTS UPON HUMAN BEINGS.”

“And love?”

“I HAVE AN INTIMATE WORKING RELATIONSHIP WITH MY CREATOR, DR. KEVIN O’DAY. I EXIST WHOLLY TO SATISFY HIM. I CAN ANTICIPATE HIS NEEDS WITHOUT REQUIRING AN EXPLICIT DIRECTIVE. THESE ARE COUNTERPARTS OF THE HUMAN ATTRIBUTES OF DEVOTION, LOYALTY, AND SOLICITUDE. SO IN AN OPERATIONAL SENSE I CAN BE SAID TO BE CAPABLE OF LOVE, OR AT LEAST OF TRAITS BY WHICH LOVE MAY ARGUABLY BE DEFINED. BUT I AM DEVOID OF POSSESSIVENESS, JEALOUSY, OR THE EXPECTATION OF REQUITAL OF MY FRIENDSHIP.”

“Amazing!” said Kathleen Brown, swaying her hips and rising on her toes like a bashful prom queen. “Are you available in a home computer version?”

Helvelius cleared his throat. “Apparently Odin is not above a little grandstanding. Kevin, could you switch the speaker off?”

Kevin hesitated for a stubborn half second, and then flicked the speaker switch. “Sorry, Odin,” he said, letting his hand catch in the air, like a backhanded salute.

Ali was relieved that Kevin was off the air. He had been flippant, even rude, but she knew that he was capable of much worse.